Our trip to San Francisco was coincidentally during Pride 2010! Over the ten days we spent in the bay area, I had quite the range of experiences, mostly too exhausting to write about in any detail right now. Zoo, Alcatraz, random joints, aquarium, fun sex, open container citation, bums, DANCING, bartering, record stores, clubs, girlsgirlsgirls, boysboysboys, Diggnation, free alcohol, DRIVING, ice machines, missing my beautiful animals and my beautiful keyboard. If nothing else the trip served to remind me of who I am and whom I’d rather be. Pure inspiration, even the shitty parts.

I am still broke but yoga and meditation are free.

Now I realize that I’ve been doing it all wrong, this battle with my brain. It’s not about rewarding myself when I resist something I want to resist, especially when the the reward is another negative thing to my body. The reward is in the resistance itself.

I started a bit of a body detox today. Nearly two weeks of drinking and eating junk non stop while on vacation in San Francisco has taken it’s toll. I’ll still be drinking, likely, but I’m pairing my unabashed alcoholism will all other things healthy. I haven’t smoked more than five cigarettes in the last five weeks, though I did go through a few cheap cigars and the green smoke will never stop entering my lungs. Today
I have begun consuming large quantities of green tea with fresh blueberries and lemons smashed into it. This week I will only be eating things that are real food, nothing processed and very few carbs. Carrots, cucumbers, mushrooms, bananas, pineapple, lemons, strawberries, blueberries, beans and such. Doubtless, this attention to my body and mind will pay off.

Monday night was nice, back in the comfortable world of drunken friends. Tuesday night was even more lovely at Laura’s eviction party: drink, snort, dance, sing, talk, BOHEMIAN RHAPSODY, police, sprinklers, jumping balconies, hiding in closets and under beds, huge pupils. Ah, how ordinary in our lives but still so refreshing! We must create, oh you beautiful humans, this is our world.

Today is the day.
The beginning.
I have a lot of work to do, to become this person that I’ve been harboring within myself for years now. I will become what I want, I will change my name, I will adventure and love and live. My motivation has never been more grounded, my determination has never been more powerful. In a way, I am bringing each one of you with me.

I spend a lot of time trying to explain the inconvenience of desk perching to Sean Connery the cat. He walks on the keyboard, bats at the mouse, leaves awkward comments on Facebook and impairs my view of the monitor. I have to commend his persistence, though, because no matter how many times I pick him up and relocate his fuzzy orange kitty body he always eventually returns to his favoured position, rubbing my face with his while big fat purs rumble in his chest. He head butts my hand as it tries to click on things and gets eye juice all over my fingers. God damn adorable little fucking bastard!

You know when you wake up with a pounding head, smelling like sweat with quarters stuck to your tits that you had a good night. If my life were a movie, which scenes from a Wednesday night adventure would make the final cut? :

[couch in a bar]
her: You’re drunk, I feel like I’m taking advantage of you.
me: Well…I’m on top, so that has to count for something.

I’ll have to take a break from being a great American party girl for a day or so considering the lack of funds, booze and patrons. My depression hates me for it, but my body is thankful. It seems today I will have to get creative and dig up some distractions that do not depend so heavily on the voluntary ingestion of poisons.

As visually based as I consider myself to be, I always find it more efficient to express my innards through words. The impact and clarity they lend really makes me feel my message is being relayed with the ever present possibility of reader by reader interpretation. Visual art, of course, contains the same properties but I find little finesse in my abilities there. I tend to combine the two and litter the world with confusing, not-quite-art pieces. It frustrates me a lot of the time, I just want to create something more subtle that lets the viewer really soak an image in without having their feelings interrupted by direct captions on the work itself. I want the words without the letters, I guess that’s what fashion is for.

I wonder if civilization will eventually build up higher and higher until it collapses in on itself and burns to a crisp. I kind of hope so and I hope I’m here when it goes down. I want to be a piece of the reconstruction, a bard and a trader because this isn’t working and we need something different! There is a pile of books that I haven’t picked up in a few years and I think I’ll be reading Anthem this week just to encourage my little bits of (unwillingly) sober social revolution.

Spitting is a terrible habit that has a strangely huge impact on my life sometimes. I spit constantly and I realize a lot of innocent bystanders find it to be rather disgusting. I don’t do it on purpose! I just have to get that crap out of my body or something. The other day I began to wonder what my face must look like while I use the power of internal suction to gather up all the phlegm in the throat. Not the most appealing images…

The bus stop outside of my work is on a busy street right in front of a gym. While waiting to pull into traffic I watched the shoulders of a welled toned, tanned, middle-aged woman flex and ripple as they worked smoothly to lift a water bottle to her lips and suck its contents down. I could feel the smoke from my cig burn my eyes as the cookies (later to be joined by tequila) settled in the pit of my stomach and the THC cuddled my blood stream. Here I was at 21-years spitting blood and chunky mucus into gravel while someone twice my age was in her physical prime just yards away, it’s almost enough to make a girl feel guilty like I’m not living this existence to the fullest. My overactive imagination corrected this for me: her clear, alert eyes detected an opening in the rush hour rat race and she turned into the street.

BAM! A truck, a crash, a split second.I was breathing still, she was not.I win.

If we’re gonna die, we’re gonna die (from our own arrogance) so we may as well take our time.

for a while I had close friendsthe kind that let you spray paint them when they’re drunk.the kind that keep you warm when the heat goes outthe kind that help you fill up the station wagon when dumpster diving and never blame you for eating that chocolate. or making strange cinnamon treats out of the pizza crust.the kind that will always share their last cigarette with youthe kind that will write lyrics to punk songs and hide them on your computerthe kind that haggles for used skate shoes as a gift to youthe kind that bombs hills with you, even when they have loose bearings.the kind that helps you cook a feast in an unpaid for apartment.the kind that keeps playing even when they bleed.the kind that accidentally breaks your ceiling fan with nunchucksthe kind that allow you to witness them shave their mohawkslet you paint their spikes.the kind that give you hope and faith in humanity.The kind I let go and forced away.

because I like to hear myself talk.
‘I am lucky to constantly be exposed to a ridiculous variety of experiences. I’m almost always completely consumed in this strange sense of appreciation and adoration for all things life. It can never be turned off. Everything is too interesting.’

Like right now, the speed and comfort with which my finger tips are flying across the greasy keys hitting letter after letter individually, forcing them to combine and spill my thoughts on to the page. On to my screen. On to your screen. You’re getting a sense of my life(the passion, the insanity, the awesomely fucked up-ness) from the safety of your own life. What a stunningly beautiful thing. How simply feeling the comfort I associate with typing can bring me to the brim with joy. REAL joy. It’s swirling about in my lungs at all times. My eyes are spinning, over-stimulated, desperately soaking in every last visual drop of information in my surroundings. Caressing it in brain fibers and sending a tingling bliss through my entire nerve system. Even in the two feet that have been crushed in circle pits so many times and are basically numb, they tingle now.
And don’t you want to live this?
don’t you want to look back on your memories and sigh happily with the knowledge that you’ve been living life to the fullest?
don’t you want to look forward to the future and giggle because you understand so clearly that even the most dreadful, terrible things that may occur are in their own way truly lovely?
don’t you want to be lured by the promise of new sensation?
fresh perspective?
don’t you want to be confident in your perception of actuality?

I do.
I am.
I love.

Hmm. Been hitting the bong.
But seriously, how can you let anything pass by you!
WAKE UP.
let the merriment commence!

your willingness to let yourself be happy is the key to full-blooded, unquestionable delight

At times, I wonder.
This afternoon was one of those times; using a dirty towel to soak up the urine left on the bathroom floor by the other. My poor socks, at least they were on sale. I wonder if this is right, if this is okay, how long can I continue. I’m only twenty years old, I cannot even legally be an alcoholic yet. This hasn’t managed to dissuade me. [sigh]

The theme of last night’s party was the 1980s. The mix was great, the spandex was better; it was a fun group of people. Where we live (in an apartment) the neighbor’s don’t call the cops. I hate this place some times, but I do not want to leave. I may have no choice, though, if I don’t find a job soon. Very soon, T minus 3 weeks, MAX. I should be trying harder. Part of me wants to start over, be alone, snow and smallness. Then again, NO.

At last resort, the place I’d have to move to is Sandpoint, Idaho. I grew up there. It is a stunning place; the lake, the mountain. I could snowboard all winter, boat all summer. My family is close to there, but not my friends. I don’t even think I could get decent internet. I’m terrified that a move there will leave me feeling depressed and isolated. In the same way though, I would have a nice house to myself, I could focus on building my character. I could go mountain biking, run the trails everyday, adventures in the woods. But I wouldn’t. My mind keeps swaying. I am frustrated beyond belief with the pressure of decision and time is running out.

I’ve been sewing a lot, at least.

Let’s go on an adventure, shall we?

I’ll leave you on a note of slight sadness.
Though, the resin collected was impressive: